


I'm Slowly Dying (With or Without You)

by writershapeholeonthedoor



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: A bit stubborn, Angst and Romance, Anxiety Attacks, Canon Divergence, Declarations Of Love, F/F, Idiots in Love, Love, Not Canon Compliant, Panic Attacks, Romance, Season/Series 05, Somewhere between Lex yelling and Lena showing up on Kara's door, Supergirl (TV 2015) Season 5, They're clearly in love, True Love, but they mean well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29792451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writershapeholeonthedoor/pseuds/writershapeholeonthedoor
Summary: "Please, tell me what's wrong."Hard to know where to start, to be fair. Was there anything right in her life? Her mother was dead, her father was dead, Lillian hated her, Lex was a manipulative little bitch, Kara was a liar, Sam was miles and miles away taking care of her own life, she had no one else, everything she worked so hard for was gone, not even her house was the same. And she couldn't breathe.OrAfter her discussion with Lex, Lena has a severe panic attack that caught the attention of National City's resident hero.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 10
Kudos: 410





	I'm Slowly Dying (With or Without You)

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, boy, this is just another thing my mind had come up with. Is it too late to still be writing fix-ups for season 5? Anyway, here goes another one. So, this is supposed to take place after Lex yelling at Lena in 5x18, somewhere before she goes over to Kara. Hope you can enjoy it!
> 
> Also, extra huge gigantic thanks to my amazing beta, Sarah. As usual, you are my savior!

The first time Lena had a panic attack, she was sixteen years old and she had the application forms from MIT spread in front of her. She was admittedly too young to even have the forms, but she was a Luthor and Luthors have their ways more often than not. Since that was the first time it happened, all the cold sweat, chest pain and trouble breathing scared the living shit out of teenage her, who burst into Lex's room announcing she was having a heart attack. It only made sense, she tried to tell him while all her brother did was stare and stare some more. That's how their father died, after all, they had the genetic predisposition for it. Doesn't matter if Lena took the healthy lifestyle quite seriously, or that she took fencing classes four times a week, practiced tennis every Saturday and ate more vegetables than any other person on the planet. She was definitely having a heart attack.

It wasn't a heart attack, as the family doctor ruled out four hours later after Lex finally drove her to the ER. A panic attack, he explained, aggravated by the fact that Lena didn't know what it was, though it was a heart attack and, as a consequence, thought that she was dying. He gave her a prescription, told her she should search for a specialist and let them go back home. On the way back, Lex told her she shouldn't tell Mother.

"Mother doesn't believe in mental diseases. That's for the weak and she hates the weak."

Lena wanted to point out that Lillian already hated her anyway but her brother did enough for her for one day to get into a discussion with him. So, instead, Lena threw the prescription away and told Lillian she asked Lex to teach her how to drive and they spent the afternoon at a Walmart parking lot. Lillian wasn’t happy with that either, but she was never happy anyway.

Lena had many panic attacks after that first one. It was especially terrifying at first because Lena knew how bad it was, how it made her few like she was about to die, so she would freak out every time her heartbeat would peak for any reason or anytime she felt a tightness in her chest. She assumed that's why the therapy would come in handy, but she hadn't been brave enough to stand up against Lillian for twelve years and she wouldn’t start by demanding to be taken to a psychiatrist.

Instead, she found help in the only place that never failed to help her in times of need. Books.

Lena went to the library and she devoured every book that approached the subject. She took notes, she ate snacks, she made a pause to learn how to drive so Lillian wouldn’t be suspicious, but she learned all she could from those books. Over time, it got easier. She would be able to identify when it was about to happen, she learned breathing exercises, she acquired hobbies that helped calm down her heart rate instead of accelerating it, she started carrying a lavender extract air freshener in her bag, and, overall, she dealt with it by herself.

Lex, before he left home and assumed their father's position at the family's company, would sometimes help. He would engage her in chess matches, entertain her with anecdotes he found funny, explain something about his projects to her. It was almost like he knew what she was going through and he wanted to support her in his own way.

Ironic to think that the same boy who drove her to the hospital in the middle of a panic attack of his own, scared about losing his little sister, would one day become the cause of her panic attacks.

It first happened when she heard about the crimes Lex committed. The atrocities, all the deaths, the pain, the destruction. She knew her brother wasn’t a good person but she never imagined that he was a murderer – a genocidal one, in fact. So, when the first police officer knocked on her door to ask her questions after Lex's first attack, Lena did not react other than panic. Because that was her older brother, the man who taught her how to play chess and who made her life at the Luthor’s residence bearable, and then there was all this proof that the same man was a monster.

It happened again later that night, when she was alone and the words kept repeating in her mind. And it happened over and over again for the months that followed it, sometimes when she heard Lex’s name, sometimes when she saw a news report about it, twice during the trial she had to testify in, sometimes when she was alone and the silence became too loud.

That’s why she picked up her things and left for National City. A change of scenery, one of the articles said, can be the key to progress.

And things shifted and molded once she set foot in the new city. Between running around to build up a company from the ashes and dealing with the mess that was her personal life, Lena didn’t have enough time to think about anything else. She got better at the breathing exercises since she didn’t have enough time to distract herself with other things and, surprisingly, for the first time since she was sixteen, Lena felt like she could handle things just fine on her own.

Then she met Kara and things changed for real. Her first friend in the new city, her best friend in the entire world, made things easier for her. It was easier to breathe, it was easier to go through her day, it was easier to be. Lena never told Kara about her panic attacks – she told no one, actually. She always thought she might have to explain eventually if Kara walked inside her office one day to find her panting behind her desk but that never happened. Lena hadn’t had a panic attack since the day she met Kara and that was as concerning as it was alluring.

How could one person be both the solution and the cause of some of her biggest problems?

It made no sense. Lena would never understand the effect Kara had on her heart – her ability to make her heart beat faster on sight and calmer on demand. As though she could trigger a panic attack with her smile but the calm feeling she brought with her made it impossible to happen. So, like many things in her life, Lena picked up the problem and, instead of dealing with it, she shoved it inside a box and then pushed it so deep inside her mind that it wasn’t even in the shadows.

(Like her abandonment issues, the frustrated dream of going to Disney only to have Lillian saying she couldn’t go, her fear of heights and the ocean, her trust issues and her undeniable feelings towards her best friend. All the above were securely locked inside her, never to see the light of the day.

For the long two years she had known Kara Danvers, Lena had forgotten how a panic attack could feel so... suffocating. Well, not entirely forgotten. More likely, lost in her memories, replaced by other bad feelings like facing death threats thanks to her own family, falling from buildings, piloting a helicopter, almost dying on a plane and it goes on. She almost had one when she shot Lex – when she found out the truth about the person she had trusted with the biggest parts of her soul, only to find out she had been lying this whole time. She certainly felt very close to having one when Kara confronted her at the Pulitzer. It almost happened when she finally told Kara she knew the truth for quite some time now right before trapping her at the Fortress of Solitude.

All those times the only thing that stopped it from happening was blue orbs staring right back at her. Even if filled with pain, confusion, or hurt, Kara still had the remarkable effect of sending calming waves all over her body. After shooting Lex; while in shock that Kara was admitting to a secret Lena thought she never would; while crying and begging for Lena’s forgiveness behind an impenetrable wall, even to her inhuman strength.

Kara wasn’t there that time though. There was only her, and Lex, and tons of experiments surrounding them, and a broken project on the floor, and a thousand lies.

“I gave you the world!” Lex’s breath was hot and wet from that close to her face. His eyes were so filled with rage, his skin trembling with the sheer force of it, that Lena couldn’t help but writhe under it. “Everything!” Even now, alone inside her apartment, sitting in the dark in complete silence, Lena could still feel the fury directed at her like a hot iron. “I supported you! I sabotaged nothing! Touched nothing! I sacrificed my own goals for you!” And then he lowered his voice, and he resembled his mother much more than their shared father in that second because Lillian Luthor never raised her voice but she always sent the message with the same intensity. “Because you needed to see your little project fail with your own eyes, to know the true depravity of humanity, to know that my way was the only way.”

It was fair to say that Lena couldn’t even remember what exactly she replied to her brother. All she knew was that she needed to get out, to get away from him, to escape. She said a few words, turned on her heels and made her escape without tripping on her own feet although her legs felt wobbly and, her muscles, unsteady. Once inside her house, Lena finally allowed herself to feel.

To feel.

What a weird concept, she thought while sliding down the wall of her bathroom, tears rolling down her cheeks and sobs shaking her body like there was an earthquake shaking her apart. Lena wasn’t good at recognizing and asserting her feelings, and it was even harder when all she felt was sorrow.

Sorrow for having trusted once more, sorrow for having made another mistake, sorrow for having believed, even for a second, that her brother could be different, that _she_ could be different. That a Luthor could help change the world for good. She felt utterly stupid. There wasn’t a part of her cells that didn’t feel the disappointment, the sadness, the grief.

There was so much she needed to do to fix the mess she helped create. And the mix of suffocating feelings with the anxiety of making things right before Lex could destroy humanity eventually led her to an unstoppable panic attack, right there on her bathroom floor, with the shower still running on top of her, the night thick outside and the weight of the world on her shoulders. She knew it was coming from the moment she felt the sadly familiar tightness in her chest but there was nothing she could do to stop it this time.

The floor was cold beneath her, the water was too hot on top of her. Her sobs were shaking her to the core, her tears lost in the spray of the too hot water, her breath was short, shallow and too fast, her heart felt like it was trying to rip its way out of her chest, and her thoughts were running a mile a minute.

She needed to find a way to stop Lex – how could she have trusted him again? She would need help, she couldn’t do it alone. Lex had many friends and she had none – and whose fault was that, really? - Lex had control over every agency around the world now that he altered the timeline – and how did he even do that? - Lena would need to talk with Supergirl. Kara. Kara is Supergirl. Kara is Supergirl and she never told her that. Lex was the one who said it, not Kara, and he said it before Lena shot him.

But he wasn’t dead. Not anymore. He was right there, running the company that once belonged to her, making plans to control humanity like every person meant less than an ant and he was the only one capable of controling every single little thing. Did that analogy even make sense? She wouldn’t know. Her brain was barely functioning. Kara would have liked it either way.

Kara lied to her. For two years, the woman she called her best friend, invented lame excuses to leave her presence when she needed to be Supergirl and, for two years, Lena trusted her with her eyes closed and hands tied behind her back. That’s exactly how she felt in that second as well. Blinded and bound, incapable of moving, breathing even.

Panic attacks can kill, Lena is factually aware of that because she strumbled on stories during her researches. It could cause real heart attacks, veins could burst, lungs could collapse, it could be a real mess albeit very rarely. The ‘very rarely’ part was hard to remember when her chest didn’t seem to expand enough to accommodate air, when her heart was beating so fast she could hear it pounding on her ears, when her arms felt as heavy as two concrete blocks, when her head hurt so bad she felt like it was about to explode.

“I gave you the world!”

He didn’t. Lies. Those were all lies.

“I sacrificed my own goals for you!”

Lies. They were lies.

“I supported you!”

No one had ever supported her before. How foolish of her to think she could do anything right. Lillian was right, she was a waste of space and time. Lex was right, she was a stupid girl who dreamed too much. Her father, who could barely glance at her most days, was most certainly right to avoid her as well. She was a defect, an error, a deficiency on a spinning wheel that she couldn’t control.

Everyone seemed to control her but Lena didn’t have control over anyone.

Was she in the shower or the bathtub? She felt like she was drowning. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe. She was drowning. She was going to die. The walls were closing around her. When did her bathtub get such huge walls? And when did it became so deep? Her lungs were filling with water, she was about to regurgitate the quick snack she ate earlier in the day, and she was going to die.

What a terrible way of going down, she thought between gasps for air and dry sobs. Naked and fallen in your bathroom. The paramedics will have a great laugh, at least. If she’s lucky enough, they won’t snap a picture as a memoir or to sell out to the journals. Although, in the new timeline they found themselves in, did anyone even care about who she was when Lex was the hero?

Guess she wouldn’t be around long enough to find out.

So lost in her own mind, trapped and tortured by it, it took Lena some precious seconds to realize the hot water wasn't hitting her shoulders anymore. Ironically, it made the drowning sensation increase to a laughable level. If she could laugh, that is.

In the back of her mind, behind Lex's scream, Lillian's sneers, her father's passive face, her mother's hand disappearing underwater, she heard it. It was faint, shushed by the cacophony of sounds already screaming inside her head, and it honestly felt like someone was talking with her underwater.

"Lena."

Lena wondered if that's how it felt to be pulled into a hurricane. If that would have the same spiral, out of control, out of body experience. She heard it, her name being called out in the void that had become the space around her, but she couldn't identify the voice or the source. Sometimes it was Lex, screaming into her face. Sometimes it was Lillian, calmly calling her out in all of her life’s failures. Sometimes it was Supergirl, melting and mixing with the woman she once called her best friend. Sometimes it was herself, calling out for help. Either way, it did nothing to soothe her.

"Lena."

They were all right. She wasn't worth it. None of it was actually worth it. Not her project, not her research, not her hard work, not even humanity. Nothing.

"Lena, look at me."

Her eyes were open. She knew that because they were burning like fire - either because of the water or because of the tears, she wasn't sure. But she couldn't focus them. It was like there was nothing to look at. Nothing there. She was alone, as usual. No one wished to be around a Luthor. No one. And people seemed to like to prove that theory using her as the character in a study.

"Please, tell me what's wrong."

Hard to know where to start, to be fair. Was there anything right in her life? Her mother was dead, her father was dead, Lillian hated her, Lex was a manipulative little bitch, Kara was a liar, Sam was miles and miles away taking care of her own life, she had no one else, everything she worked so hard for was gone, not even her house was the same. And she couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe. How could she still be thinking if she couldn't breathe?

"Are you hurt?"

Everywhere hurt. Every centimeter, as though someone had picked up a piece of wood and beat the crap out of her, albeit she had no recollection of that ever happening. Did that happen? Why was her body hurting like that? Why was her head hurting? And what's up with her chest? Was someone pressing it? Did anyone put a weight on it? What a stupid jerk, if so. Lena doesn't do sports, she can't lift it!

"Lena."

It sounded closer to the surface. Was someone pulling her out of the water? And when did she even get in the ocean? Lena doesn't swim.

"Lena?"

Uncertain. She could relate. And that tone made a bell ring inside her head. Her name, said in that intonation, with such uncertainty, by that voice. She heard it before. Where did she hear it before? Why was she hearing it now?

"Let me help you get up."

That pulled her right out of the water. It was like someone hooked a hand on the back of her neck and unceremoniously pulled her up. The difference was shocking, the reaction was visceral and she was left feeling exactly like a fish out of water.

"Don't touch me!"

She hadn't been touched, Lena realized a second later. Not yet, at least, but a pair of hands were reaching out for her and they were just an inch away before her loud yell stopped them. It came from deep inside her chest, her diaphragm expanding and burning before releasing all the fury like an animal - a scared, cornered animal. The hands retreated immediately and Lena was left to her own. Her ears rang with her scream and she was transported once again to her laboratory a few hours prior.

"Don't touch me," she repeated and it was like someone poked a balloon with a needle. All the anger, all the vice was gone. Left was the defeat, something she was used to but hurt just the same. "Please, don't touch me."

Silence. Despite her heart ringing in her ears, there was silence. Loud. Suffocating. Maddening.

"Okay." She breathed out of water for the first time in what felt like ages. "Okay, I won't."

The air was thick with steam and Lena was reminded of the shower she was supposed to be having. The heavy breaths, the racing heart, the pounding head, it was all still there, and it didn't get any better when she remembered she was naked, sitting on the cold tiles of her bathroom floor, not alone anymore and not in the dark. Was she not alone for long? Had she moved at some point? Her legs were firmly pressed against her chest, her knees raising so high that she could rest her chin on them and, thankfully, it meant all her front was covered, and it also felt like her muscles had been stuck in that position for years, so maybe she hadn't moved. But she also didn't know when she got company. How did she get company? All her doors were locked. She lived on the fifth floor and, even so, the windows were closed.

"Can I..." How did she get inside? "Here, just let me..."

There was shuffling around, the sound of fabric scraping together and Lena was once again reminded of how sensitive her ears got while in the middle of her crisis. Suddenly, pulling her out of her thoughts, she felt something falling over her shoulders and back. Whatever it was, it was heavy, soft and warm, and it helped to set her mind back in the present, her eyes focused, her head snapped up and her breath hitched.

And then she saw her. Well, rationally, Lena knew she was there all along, but her brain wasn't exactly functioning the right way so it was only fair it took her so much time to see Kara Danvers standing in front of her. Not so much standing, the woman was crouching, in fact, her arms reaching out around Lena and her hands holding the edges of something she assumed was the same thing that was draped over her shoulder.

Her former best friend's face was contorted in worry. The crinkle between her brows was prominent, the bright blue eyes were clouded in concern, her lips were tightly pursed in a thin line, and Lena was hooked by her look almost immediately. It was good to have something else to concentrate on, she tried to argue with herself, as though it would explain why her eyes kept moving around Kara’s face like she was a damn Michelangelo sculpture.

The hands didn’t touch her, successfully avoiding her skin after her explosion, but Lena still thought they were too close for comfort. The ends of whatever was dropped on top of her came to lay on her knees, in front of her arms, and Lena noticed that it skillfully covered all of her body. Curious, she forced her eyes to stop staring at blue ones and look down, albeit the pressure on her throat did no good to her current panicking state.

Red. Red like Supergirl’s cape. Lena panted quite heavily when she recognized that it was, in fact, Supergirl’s cape. Now being used as a blanket to cover her naked body, something she never thought would happen. The material felt harsh against her sensitive, reddened skin, brushing against her in an almost painful way. It was also heavier than it looked, definitely pushing her shoulders down and ruining her posture. But, oh, so warm. So warm.

“Lena, what happened? Can you tell me?”

Her eyes moved back at the blonde force of nature standing in front of her. The rest of the suit was missing, Lena realized, although not sure why her brain decided to jolt back to life to realize that specific detail. Kara was wearing jeans and a black deo sweatshirt that looked so soft that Lena wished she could bury her face in it and never let go. If Kara would still be wearing the sweater while she did that, well, that would just be a bonus.

“Talk to me, please. I’m worried.”

She certainly looked like it, Lena’s mushed thoughts wanted her to say. With a grimace, Kara indeed looked as worried as she could get. Her features reminded Lena of other times – of crashing helicopters, assassination attempts, falling from rooftops - all of which she hadn’t control over but she had Supergirl around to save her and make things easier. It was hard to associate the worried face of her best friend with the unbreakable pose of the superhero, even more so when they were blending together right now in front of her.

"Okay, Lena, you have to take deep breaths." No shit, she wanted to say. Do you think I enjoy breathing those shallow breaths that makes me gasp and leaves me desperate for more air? Not at all. It's not like her body was cooperative either.

"Can you do that?"

Lena didn't particularly feel like she would ever be able to breathe normally again. Rationally, she knew it would all go away in a few moments - leaving behind the dull ache in her chest and the bad feelings to deal with. However, stuck in her own mind, unable to breathe, fully panicking and totally lost, Lena was certain she was either going to live the rest of her life like that or that she was about to die - which, come to think about it, were actually one and the same.

Establishing that did nothing to help her calm down, unfortunately.

"Here, try with me."

She didn't want to. Lena truly didn't want to. She wanted, needed, Kara to move. She felt cornered, her back pressed against the wall and Kara in front of her. Her breath wasn't going to ease anytime soon while she was feeling like that. When Kara could so easily just... scream at her face, yell, grab, hurt. No, she needed space.

"Get out," her voice was hoarse, out of breath, and held none of the commands she intended it to have. Of course, the woman didn't move. "Get out."

To no avail. Her second request also fell on deaf ears. Well, selective ears, more likely. "I know you're mad at me, but you're clearly not okay so I'm not leaving you alone."

Lena didn't want to be alone. She just wanted to see the door. She wanted to see the exit and know there was a way out. Although, considering the inhuman force standing in front of her, was there really a way out? She couldn’t push Kara away, she wasn't strong enough. Supergirl was an unmovable object and Lena was no unstoppable force.

That was clearly the wrong route for her thoughts to take. Her already short breath became more erratic, her vision blurred and her chest tightened so painfully that she couldn’t help but think she was wrong and it was indeed a heart attack.

"Move," she choked. She was drowning again, faster than before. And who gave Kara the right to push her back in the water after taking her out?

For the second time.

Fortunately, Kara seemed to understand what she meant. At least, parts of it. Because she moved, taking a step to the side the best she could on her still crouching position. For a second, she just stopped there, eying Lena with bright blue eyes and furrowed brows, before she ducked her head.

"Please, tell me how I can help you."

Lena needed help. She could do it without it but she would be better sooner if she accepted the help. She didn't deserve - the soft voice, the worried face, the cape getting wet against her damp skin - but Kara was still there and Lena could be selfish for a few more minutes just so she could breathe again.

"The water."

The blonde was up to her feet in less than a second - literally, even. Lena would blame the adrenaline rush for her achievement, but she was able to shoot her hand out and grab Kara's hand before she could go farther away. Confused, the woman looked down. Broken, Lena looked up.

"Don't."

There was a pause, precious seconds being wasted, before Kara's eyes widened slightly and her other hand moved to turn the shower faucet again. The water hit Lena's back like thunder, sending electricity all over her nerves. It was hot, hotter than it was healthy to be, and it burned more painfully than she was comfortable with. But it pulled her out of the ocean again, it put the floor back under her feet, and Lena allowed the small comfort to wash over her.

Kara just stood there, her shoes getting wetter and the legs of her pants getting damp with the water splashing on the tiles, but she didn't move. Lena realized she was wearing comfortable sweatpants and a DEO hoodie that made her wonder what her former best friend was doing before showing up in her bathroom. How could she have her cape and not the rest of her suit? Kara just blinked down at her.

Then Lena let her hand drop back to her knee, releasing Kara from her hold - although, Kara could have freed herself just as easily. That seemed to bring the tall blonde back to life because she instantly moved out of the way again, leaving enough room so Lena could see the shower glass door and the bathroom’s wooden door. Her way out.

"You still need to take deep breaths."

"I-I-I-I ca-can't," Lena shook her head as she spoke, which didn't help with getting the words out.

There was a deep sigh all of sudden and she was almost offended to realize it had come from Kara. But then the other woman was moving again before her eyes could focus on her face and Lena was left to imagine if she was annoyed or not. Probably so. She probably realized Lena didn't deserve her help and that she got her sneakers wet for nothing.

Just as Lena was about to sob again, Kara sank by her side. Quite literally, she was standing one second, and then sliding by her side using the wall to support herself in the next one. Lena could only watch when the blonde sat by her side like the shower wasn't getting her clothes completely wet as well, like her loose hair wasn't clinging onto her skin and messing up her curly strands, like she wasn't sitting beside a naked and panicking woman.

Before Lena could even ask what the hell she was doing - if she could even find her voice - Kara reached her right hand out until she grasped Lena's left one. For a second, it felt like a complete stranger was touching her, like they had never touched before. It took a second, and then Kara's hand was like a rock against her trembling ones and Lena let herself be guided until her palm was resting against the woman's sternum. Kara held her hand there firmly as though she was afraid Lena would try to pull away, though she wasn't sure she could even move at that moment.

"Here, with me. In." Lena tried. "In, Lena. Deep breath in, come on, you can do it. In." Her lungs expanded and Kara nodded, copying her movement almost exaggeratedly. "Now out, slowly." She tried but it came out shaky and unsteady, so she gave up in the middle of it, letting out a huff of breath. "Again." Against Kara's chest, her hand followed the movements of her muscles and she tried to force her lungs to match the same pace.

Tired, Lena closed her eyes and let her head fall back until it hit the wall behind her. The water was now cascading down her face and neck, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. She had managed to get on the safety boat and Kara was slowly pulling her back to shore.

"Does counting help?" She shook her head no. "Silence?" Another shake, more urgent this time. "Okay, I guess the blasting rock music should have been my tip-off."

Lena chuckled. It held no real humor - because she didn't find any amusement in that - but she still felt the need to let the other woman know the distraction was appreciated. Before a panic attack would start, silence, breathing exercises and calming music would do wonders to her. But after it was already happening, there wasn't much she could do to help herself.

"Maybe it could help?" Kara offered gently. "Not blasting rock on your stereo, but some music, I mean. I could go put it on."

"No," Lena shook her head again. Her breathing had started to even out, albeit it peaked again under the prospect of being alone again.

"Okay." Kara squeezed the hand she was holding. "Tell me what I can do to help."

Lena breathed in and out twenty more times - she counted them as her muscles started to lose some of the tension - before she released a deep sigh. "You already are. Just... Just stay here."

“I’m here,” the blonde stated without an ounce of doubt in her voice, or any indication that she might not be there any time soon, so Lena allowed herself to focus on her breaths.

Kara didn’t let go of her hand and she didn’t try to recover it, and it took her a few seconds to realize that was the first time in almost a year that they were touching each other. Lena wasn’t sure whose fault that was anymore – not when her brain was still foggy. All she knew, all too well, was the pain still lingering in her chest, poking her wounds, breaking her walls at the same time it put two bricks at a time to replace the one that went down. And Lena learned that it was the only thing worth carrying around because it was the only thing that made you wiser – the good feelings make you weaker, Lillian would say.

“This might cheer you up,” the woman beside her commented suddenly and Lena almost jumped out of her skin – for a second, she forgot someone was keeping her company in her very large bathroom. “I beat Alex’s ass today. We were sparring. I won. Don’t believe her if she tries to tell you otherwise.”

Lena was sure she was lying. It was quite obvious when Kara was lying. Her voice got just a note higher and she spoke in broken sentences, as though her mind couldn’t form a complete long-phrase and would just come up with things as she spoke. Lena knew that. She had noticed that little quirk of her friend a few months into their friendship. It still amazed her how long she allowed herself to be blinded by Kara’s secret just because she thought...

What did she think, exactly? That Kara wouldn’t lie to her? That Kara was different from every other person who had ever been a part of her life? Even when she knew when her friend was lying? Even when she knew Kara’s voice enough to know when she was hiding something?

Who was the real idiot there?

Feeling overly exposed to those intrusive thoughts that were doing nothing to help her, Lena hugged the red cape closer around her body and shivered. Although the water falling from the shower was hot, it wasn’t enough to keep the soaked cape warm enough to keep her body temperature high, neither was the cold floor against her naked skin helping in any way. She wasn’t about to move, though.

“I was doing my laundry when I heard your heartbeat spike.”

The admission sounded quieter and almost shy, but Lena didn’t have the strength to look over at the woman who used to know all of her secrets – and offered only lies in exchange – to see it herself. Instead, she kept breathing in a perfect match with Kara. In and out. In and out. Hold in, slowly out.

“I tried to call your phone, but you didn’t answer. I called your name, but I didn’t get a response. I thought you were dying, so I panicked and broke your balcony door. I will fix it, promise.”

Lena almost laughed at that. She tried to picture it, the puppy reporter holding a shovel or mixing cement. The prospect of having Supergirl doing it was even funnier. And, for God’s sake, Kara Danvers is Supergirl and she had to hear it from Lex after she shot him.

“I thought I was dying too,” Lena confessed in a weak whisper that was barely audible.

Kara’s thumb was doing circles on the back of her hand and on the side of her wrist. For how long she had no idea, but that seemed to be the last paddles taking her to shore. “What happened?”

_“I gave you the world! Everything!”_

She could still feel it. His breath against her face, his saliva hitting her skin, his voice ringing against her ears, resounding on her head, breaking her down. Lex himself had never laid a finger on her. Over the years he had paid numerous men to try and take her life – and how many of those attempts were stopped by Supergirl? – but her own brother never physically assaulted her. Words, on the other hand, were his biggest weapon and Lex was a master at operating his guns.

He learned that from Lillian, as did Lena, ironically. Although the three of them were very different from each other. While Lillian held venom in her words, she never raised her voice. Lena had seen her in many levels of anger throughout her life, but she never saw her scream or yell. Lex dealt with things like her total opposite. He wouldn’t scream at every corner, however, he would get frustrated very easily and his way to lash out was to yell and let it all out. Meanwhile, Lena used sarcasm and some very well-made phrases.

She had only screamed once out of anger and it had been into Supergirl’s face right before she locked her away like an animal. Lena didn’t think she would have been able to scream if she was confronting Kara instead. Sweet, innocent Kara, although now she knew the truth. Now, months later, she wasn’t even sure she could scream at Supergirl again.

“Lena, breath in and out with me.”

Her breathing had accelerated again. It made sense, Lena thought with a generous amount of bitterness. Thinking about Lex and Lillian did that to her. “I think I’m going to puke.” As soon as she said it, her stomach made a sickening churn and she heaved a dry gasp. There was no thinking. She was going to puke.

“Can I help you get to the toilet?”

The other alternative was puking all over Supergirl’s cape. And maybe the idea was a little appealing, she wasn’t going to lie, but she also didn’t wish to puke all over herself. So instead Lena nodded and, in a blink, Kara slid from her sitting position to the same crouching stance she had before. This time, she held Lena's hand still close to her chest before she searched for the other one underneath her own cape. Lena was in no condition to be self-aware of her nudity or the fact that her former best friend was brushing much more skin than she was comfortable with.

“Here, I will pull you up and carry you.”

Lena wanted to protest but the bile was already high on her throat, her legs were still shaking and her head was spinning. Nodding, she let herself be pulled up to a standing position. In that second, many things went through her head – she was going to puke right then and there, the cape was sliding off her shoulders and her front was definitely naked, and Kara was very, very impressively holding her up since Lena had no strength on her muscles. The blonde let go of one of her hands so she could use the other one to adjust the cape around the smaller quivering woman before she easily scooped her into her arms and stepped out of the shower.

They were both wet and water started dripping on the floor immediately. However, Lena was not going to worry about it when her body was rebelling against her. Kara kneeled on the floor, taking the brunette with her like she weighed less than a penny, and Lena was hovering over the toilet a second later. She hadn’t eaten anything after the quick snack earlier that day, Lena remembered too late, because all that rose in her throat was liquid mixed with bile that left a burning trail on the way. She panted a couple of times, emptying her already empty stomach, until all she could do was cough.

“Breathe,” Kara reminded her softly and she came to realize the woman was sitting behind her on the floor, holding her wet hair up and out of the way, drawing soothing circles on her back. “Do you need to go to the hospital? I can take you.”

“N-No.”

“Or maybe the DEO, if you prefer,” the not-so-secret-anymore hero tried again. “Or Alex. I can call Alex or take you to her.”

“Kara,” Lena interrupted her, one of her hands letting go of the sides of the toilet to touch the woman’s thigh behind her – the only place she could reach in their position. Her mind felt much lighter now that her body had made the last rebel act against her. “I will be fine. It’s a panic attack. I’ve had them before, it’s fine.” That came out all shaky and broken as she fought to get enough breath to say the words.

Strong fingers closed around hers on a strong thigh. “I don’t know what to do, please tell me what I can do to help.”

Lena sighed, her entire body losing the rest of strength it had and falling on her knees on the floor. She let her upper body rest against the side of the toilet, trying to ignore the smell coming from it, as her fingers dug into a muscular thigh so hard that she was sure her knuckles were white. She closed her eyes and ran her other hand against her forehead to try to stop the drops of water and sweat from reaching her eyes.

She was allowed to be selfish for just a while longer.

“Alex kicked your ass, didn’t she?”

There was a startled silence behind her before a huff was heard, the warm breath hitting the side of her face. “She wishes. I totally won. Big time.”

The worst liar who ever existed – and Lena was the fool who fell for every single one of them. “Where’s the rest of your suit?”

“Washing.”

“I made the suit myself,” Lena reminded her. “It uses nanotechnology. You don’t have to wash it.”

“No need to brag, geez.”

Lena laughed. She just couldn’t help it. When was the last time she laughed? She couldn’t tell. It happened so long ago that she didn’t even remember that. One thing she was sure of: it was definitely because of Kara. And there she was again.

“Like I said, I was sparring with Alex. She insists I use my cape so I can learn how to escape if anyone grabs it.” Kara sighed. “She also said I should have kept the skirt and removed the cape.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I still have the skirt somewhere if she wants to use it and see how it feels like.”

The younger woman scoffed and opened her eyes again. Her heart wasn’t beating so fast anymore, the worst of it seemed to be over, but her chest still felt tight. “You were wearing the cape with a hoodie?”

Kara looked down at her own outfit like she hadn’t noticed it before. Her clothes were soaked and clinging into her body, but she just shrugged. “I like the hoodie, it’s comfy.”

“Well, it’s better than what I have right now,” Lena avoided looking down because the last thing she needed was to see how very much naked she was in the presence of the woman she was once in love with.

Although it still felt like she was, being completely and utterly honest. Lena could lie to people around her but she wasn’t going to lie to herself. If she didn’t have any type of romantic feelings towards Kara, she would never have been blind enough to miss the huge piece of information that was almost screamed into her face every day. And if she had got over said feelings, she wouldn’t have followed Kara out to offer her condolences over Jeremiah’s death, neither would she spend two hours in a bookstore trying to find the perfect book, neither would she still have Kara’s photo in her phone and a perfect copy on her table.

“Do you want me to grab you something to wear?” Kara asked softly, as though she was also noticing for the first time that the other woman was naked – though, she did go out of her way to cover her when she got there.

Lena tossed the idea around her head a couple of times before she nodded. “Just... don’t be long.” How pathetic. Lillian would have smirked at her, the same smirk that made her feel like she was worth less than gum on her shoe. Lex would have laughed in her face.

“Two seconds, I promise.”

It took her two seconds, indeed. The gush of wind from her departure was not even gone before Kara was back, holding a change of clothes in her hands. She put it by the sink before stepping back with a shy smile.

“I will let you change, but I will be just outside, okay?”

“Kara, I-“ Lena closed her eyes in shame. “I don’t think I can stand by myself without puking again.”

Or passing out. Or starting another attack. Or wishing to throw herself from the closest window. Either way, Kara seemed to understand because she approached her again, this time with both hands extended in front of her body. Lena took them without a second thought, as though trusting Kara came as second nature to her – something she thought she had forgotten almost a year ago. The blonde helped her to her feet and Lena had to let go of one of her hands to hold the cape in front of her chest to keep it wrapped around herself.

She must be a view, she thought then. Wet, eyes swollen because of the tears, panic still lingering at the corners of her eyes and wrapped around Supergirl’s cape. She must have looked even more ridiculous than she felt.

Once standing, Kara held her hand for a few more seconds. “Are you good?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure? Your heartrate is spiking again.”

Lena nodded. “I’m still in the middle of it. It will take a while to wear off.”

“What else can I do?” She had no answer for that and Kara clearly had no idea what to do, so she kept talking because that’s what she did. “What if I make you some tea? Would that help?”

“I guess.”

“Okay, good.” Kara nodded and took a step back, ready to get the new task in her hands done.

“Just...” the brunette sighed. “Just don’t close the door.”

Kara didn’t, and even if Lena was a little self-conscious about it, she was also thankful. Still shaking, she found herself a towel in the cabinet and let the hero’s cape fall from her body so she could get dry. Lena tried to do it as fast as she could. She could hear Kara moving around her kitchen and suddenly her bathroom felt too suffocating. She needed to get out.

Once completely dried, she picked the clothes Kara brought her. Yoga pants that she hadn’t worn since the last time she went to spinning classes – which, ironically enough, happened with Kara by her side – and a hoodie that Lena knew all too well. The gray sweater from National City University that belonged to Kara. The woman loaned her that when she found Lena drunkenly slurring her words out, drinking wine in her dark apartment, and turns out Lena never gave it back to her.

It’s not like she stole it. It’s just she wasn’t going to give it back to her friend without washing it first, but then she didn’t want to run any risks of ruining it, so she was going to do that separate from the other clothes. When she finally realized it, a month had gone by and they were having the third movie night where Lena was wearing the sweater and Kara had yet to say a thing. When she tried to give it back, Kara said she should make it her official movie night uniform.

Lena would never admit to wearing that sweater when she missed Kara during their fall-out, but she was also not going to deny it.

Either way, Kara had opened her closet – her ridiculously large closet – and between all the options, she chose her National City University hoodie for Lena to wear. That was, admittedly, the only hoodie Lena had, but she had other sweaters and long sleeve shirts Kara could have picked.

God, Lena was really going to grasp onto thin hopes, wasn’t she?

The bile was still burning in the back of her throat, so she moved to the sink next so she could brush her teeth, half wishing she could also have a mint or something. Even without it, she felt remarkably better already.

Kara was leaning against the counter with her right hip, dipping the tea bag inside her favorite mug - something ridiculously colorful with chemical elements all over that the woman herself gave Lena because it "reminded me of you" - and her face was serious, as though she was truly putting all her attention in not screwing up the task in her hands. She had pulled her hair in a ponytail to lock away the wet, messy curls, and her clothes seemed a bit drier, like she somehow had put it to fast dry while Lena changed. More likely she just used her breath or ran around for a few seconds. Her left hand was stuffed inside the pocket of her sweatpants, her jaw was set and Lena could see, even from the distance, that she was frowning as well.

And there was something in the way she just stood there, looking completely out of place and totally belonging there at the same time that just clicked something deep inside Lena.

Something she had buried away a long time ago, shoved inside a box and pushed it deep, deep, deep in her mind.

She could admit she had made a mistake when she started working with Lex, and she could admit she made a mistake when she locked Kara inside her own fortress, and she could admit she made a mistake when she closed her eyes to the truth screaming right into her face. She could admit she fell in love with Kara, she could admit she tried to fight it, she could admit it only broke her heart more than if she had talked with Kara about it. She could admit many things, but she would never admit how many times she dreamed about the scene in front of her. Dreamed about the domesticity that she always wished for, but never voiced.

“Are you feeling better?” Kara asked, snapping her out of her thoughts. The blonde had straightened her body against the counter, she picked up the mug between her long fingers and tried to smile, although it was constricted and uneasy.

Feeling better? Lena hadn’t felt better in almost a year. She felt angry, and lonely, and empty most of the time, and none of those feelings had washed away. They still hadn't. Those were some long months. It was a long time to spend alone, trying to find your way in a world you thought you knew while it seemed to be burning around you. It was a long time missing your friends, your found family, the days where everything was simpler. It was a long time battling to do good and hold everything together when you had no idea how to hold yourself together.

At least, she could breathe, unlike ten minutes ago when she was heaving desperate breaths on her bathroom floor.

So, she nodded. And Kara smiled a bit softer, and her next breath came a bit easier. At that moment, while her former best friend took a few steps closer to hand her the tea and offered her a smile she hadn’t seen in a long time, Lena realized she was remorseful. After everything that happened in the last hours, after another disappointment and another day missing and aching something that she lost, all she could feel was remorse.

She should apologize. She could try, at least. Ask for forgiveness after doing the things she did. Kara had a big heart – the biggest she ever saw – and maybe, just maybe, she would find it in herself the possibility to forgive her. Something that Lena hadn’t been able to do a year ago when she shot Lex and found out the truth.

But, then again, it was her own fault for closing her eyes to the truth for so long. It was obvious – painfully obvious – and she told herself over and over again that she was crazy for even considering it to be real. Perhaps she had been angrier at herself than at Kara. Perhaps she was just angry in general. After a year, it was hard to remember.

She picked up the mug from Kara’s hand, making sure they wouldn’t touch, before she took two steps back so fast that it was like she had been burned. Kara noticed it, of course she did, and her expression hardened again when she also took a few steps back. The blonde hero leaned back against the counter while Lena fought the urge to run and hide. Instead, she felt the coldness of a wall behind her and let her back rest there as she slowly brought the cup to her lips.

The tea was made the exact way she liked it, she noticed when the hot liquid touched her tongue. With just a splash of milk, no sugar, strong. Lena took a long sip as she avoided looking at Kara again. Her mind chose that moment to remind her that her former best friend had just witnessed a very real mental breakdown she had in her bathroom, that she had seen her crying naked on the floor, that she had begged not to be alone.

If she had trouble facing Kara with all the regrets from before, now she could barely stay in the same room as her.

“Do you want something to eat?”

Lena almost pointed out that she had barely eaten for almost a year. She used to have Kara dropping by at lunch or dinner with a bag of food to remind her to take a break and eat, but there was no one there to do it once Kara was gone.

Not gone, Lena reminded herself. Sent away.

Instead, she shook her head and took another sip of her tea. It was vanilla, which was a weird choice for that hour of the day. She usually likes drinking vanilla tea after lunch, black tea in the morning, and chamomille at night. Those were things Kara didn’t know, she thought. They hadn’t shared enough breakfasts for her to know it, and she was always gone when Lena indulged herself with a tea after lunch.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Again, she shook her head.

_“I supported you! I sabotaged nothing! Touched nothing! I sacrificed my own goals for you!”_

Lena closed her eyes and took a deep breath of the steam leaving the mug to let the smell wash over her. Lex had bad breath. Always had, if she was going to be honest. She remembers noticing it even when she was a kid and he was reading her books in bed, waiting for her to sleep when in reality she was too entranced in the story to actually do it. After she grew up, she started thinking if his bad breath was caused by his putrid soul. A manifestation of his rotten interior, as funny as it sounded. Either way, she could still feel his breath against her face and it made her stomach churn again.

“I should go.”

She hadn’t realized she had opened her eyes until she was blessed by the sight of a slightly annoyed Kara. The hero was unhappy, probably because of her lack of response, and she had pushed herself from the counter as though she was actually going to start walking away.

Away from Lena. Again.

Away.

“No,” she found herself saying before she could think about it.

No, don’t go.

No, don’t leave.

No, don’t walk away.

No, don’t leave me alone.

She could say any of the above and they would all be the truth. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She still had her pride, although faltered. Instead, Lena looked down to the dark floor of her kitchen and tried not to purse her lips in the same way Lillian hated.

"You can yell at me all you want later," she declared. “I just... I can’t be alone. It could... It could happen again.”

It wasn’t unusual, Lena thought to herself. Her panic attacks always came in pairs, which was a bit ironic considering Lena herself barely had any friends. And, even when she managed to avoid the second one, the feelings eating her inside still wouldn’t leave for days on end. And it wasn’t like she couldn’t be alone. She could, she had been alone for most of her panic attacks since she first started having them, but she didn’t want to. Not when Kara was there again. Not when she was sorry and Kara was there.

"I'm not going to yell at you.” That wasn’t what Lena was waiting to hear. She was expecting some lame excuse or no answer at all as Kara walked away. She wasn’t ready for what she heard.

"Please,” she scoffed and rolled her eyes because, of course, Kara would yell. Lex had yelled, her father had yelled, Lillian had yelled in her own quiet way. And it wasn’t like Kara didn’t deserve to let her frustrations with Lena out. “You can scream, say I'm worthless, call me names, say you hate me. Yell whatever you want later,” Lena shrugged and sighed. “Right now I just..."

Need you to stay and keep my mind busy.

She didn’t have the chance to say it, though. Kara interrupted her before she could, her voice firm and only slightly raised. "I don't hate you.” Their eyes locked from across the room. Kara was frowning, her hands had gripped the counter behind her, and her face was hard. When she spoke next, her words were calmer, although they held the same intention. “I might not agree with everything you did but I don't hate you.” Another pause, this time her voice came out broken and uncertain. “Do _you_ hate _me_?"

Maybe. Lena wasn’t sure she ever hated Kara, albeit it was easy to think she did.

Kara had always brought most of her feelings from within her. The good was easy to see. Her loyalty to her only friend in a new city, her happiness, her love. Those were easy to feel and, even more, good to feel. After she accepted that Kara was the person that would make her feel more than anyone else in her life, Lena even bathed herself in those new things. But, it turned out, Kara also made her feel the max out of the bad as well. The rejection, the betrayal, the hurt.

And those were hard to feel. Those feelings she didn’t want to feel.

She did, though.

And perhaps it made her hate Kara for a second.

"Hate is the only thing I was taught was okay to feel," Lena admitted lowly, her breath blowing away the fog coming from the mug at the same time her eyes moved to the big glass door across the room. Outside, the night was heavy, the clouds were probably hiding the stars and the moon was only showing its right side. Inside, the tension was just as heavy, the hurt was hiding Lena’s true feelings and the tea was now lukewarm.

It felt like a lifetime ago when Kara first waltzed in her life, bringing the sun and all its shine with her. Certainly felt more than a year.

Inside, there was Kara, standing in front of her after a year of doing everything she could to keep her distance. Inside her apartment, there was Kara, strong and determined. Inside her heart, Kara was being pushed away by a monster called hurt, although she refused to leave. Not for the first time, Lena wondered if she would ever heal. Maybe she was too broken already. She felt hollow. She had felt like that for a long time now.

“Lena, do you hate me?”

The question was made with so much hesitation that Lena felt her heart sink, skip a beat, and start running at the same time. She was sorry, God, she was so damn sorry. But she was so hurt too. It was a lot to feel for someone that hadn’t felt much all her life. Or maybe she had felt too much all her life.

It was hard to say.

“No.” The admission came easier than it should have, Lena thought to herself. She did hate Kara, for only a second and only because hate was something she knew how to feel since she was a child. But it was only for a second. Enough to make her lose her breath and make some terrible decisions. Enough to make her scream and lock Kara away, and then lose herself. Enough to make her hate herself. “God. I tried, I tried so hard to hate you, what you did, your lies, your actions, your betrayal. But I can't. I can’t hate you.”

For whatever reason, she looked back to the other woman. Kara’s eyes were still hard, her brows were still furrowed, her lips were still pushed together in a thin line, but there was a small glint in her eyes that looked suspiciously like tears. She didn’t look angry exactly, but she didn’t look happy either. Lena suddenly remembered the face that had looked at her inside her bathroom – concerned and desperate to help – and she almost wished it back. She remembered the cape draped on her shoulders and the soft hand grasping at hers. She remembered lies next and it all came crashing down.

“Do you want to?” Kara asked eventually.

She didn’t look like she actually wanted the answer for that and Lena didn’t truly want to give her one. She did, however. Because her chest was still too tight and her thoughts were jumbled and her heart was aching for the past year and her sun hadn’t shone ever since.

“Yes.” Kara looked surprised, only for a second, before she started looking angry and Lena could almost hear her voice raising to yell at her next – and she deserved it, didn’t she? She decided to talk faster to avoid it regardless of that. “It would be easier than loving you.” The hero now looked shocked and Lena huffed a humorless laugh at that. “I’m sure it would hurt less.”

That was a lie. She couldn’t be sure it would hurt less. She hoped it would hurt less because, right now, it hurts like a bitch and it was hard to think it could be worse than that. The universe wouldn’t be so cruel. Or maybe it would. It tended to have a great laugh with her.

“Lena...”

Lena shrugged, took another sip of her lukewarm tea and sighed. When she looked up again, Kara had moved. She had taken a couple of steps closer before she stopped, took three steps back, then moved forward again. She came to a halt in the middle of Lena’s ridiculously big kitchen, with her mouth opening and closing like she was trying to say something but had no idea what to say, and Lena almost laughed.

Almost.

She didn’t, though. Because she felt more like crying than laughing for almost a year now.

“I will have your cape washed and return it tomorrow,” she said, took a deep breath, and reached out to put her mug down and crossed her arms. “I hope you don’t mind if I use...” coconut soap. That was what she was going to say and it would be more out of depracative humor than actual concern for Kara’s soap preferences, but the words died at the back of her throat when she noticed that the blonde was moving again.

Closer.

Really close.

Somehow, closer than they had been inside her bathroom because, in there, Kara had touched her hand and nothing else. In the kitchen, her former best friend suddenly raised her hand to touch Lena’s jaw.

“What are you doing?” she asked and she sounded completely out of breath as though she was in the middle of a new panic attack. Which wouldn’t be surprising. There wasn’t a mirror around, but Lena could picture the surprise on her face and the panic behind her eyes as she waited for Kara’s response.

“I just...” Blue eyes flicked from her eyes to her lips, then back to her eyes, and Kara looked so lost that Lena almost asked her if she needed to sit down and take a breath. “I just need to try something.”

Kara’s lips were softer than they looked, which came as a shock. Lena gasped the first time she felt them touching hers and her eyes widened as her arms fell to her side, not sure what was even going on. Kara tasted like a matcha green latte from Starbucks – and Lena hated matcha with all her being – and onion ring chips that she remembered were one of Kara’s favorite snacks. She smelled a bit like sweat and deodorant, and she kind of kissed Lena’s teeth at first before their lips touched.

Lena always imagined their first kiss – and, yes, she had thought about it like an obsessed person since she first met the blonde – would be the sweetest thing ever, with fireworks exploding in the background, racing hearts and shy giggles. Things she saw in the romantic comedies she watched on numerous movie nights because she knew Kara liked them. Things she had never experienced herself, but thought they would happen when she kissed the woman she had fallen in love with so deeply.

That wasn’t the case.

There were no fireworks and it wasn’t sweet either. Her heart was racing, though. One thing checked. The kiss was heavy with hurt and a year of distance. The giggles didn’t come. It was hard, and messy, and out of sync, and Lena felt almost angry at Kara for taking that fantasy away from her. For crushing another thing in her life.

Instead, she tried to take it back by biting the blonde’s bottom lip hard enough to make her gasp, by raising one hand to grab the back of Kara’s neck to pull her close at the same time she pulled her hair harder than was necessary, by raising her other hand to grasp at the front of her hoodie to both tug her closer and push her away. Instead, she swallowed Kara’s gasp and shoved her tongue inside her mouth. Instead, she tried to hate Kara at the same time she loved her.

Instead, she only hated herself.

Kara pushed her back against the wall she was leaning against, kissing her back as hard as she was, but Lena didn’t allow her to take any control away from her. She felt a strong hand holding her hip as the other one cupped her face. Their push and pull lasted about a minute before they both realized there was no point in fighting it. No point in pushing.

Like wildfire in a dry forest, there was no way to stop it.

Kara’s hand was suddenly under her sweater – Kara’s borrowed sweater – touching her still damp skin and raising goosebumps everywhere she touched. Then her own hands were pulling Kara’s hoodie away, then her legs were wrapping around a slim waist, strong arms were picking her up, soft lips were kissing her neck and white teeth were biting her skin, and Lena felt the fire explode.

Inside, outside, everywhere.

She felt underwater again. She couldn’t hear anything other than the thunder her heart was creating inside her chest, and she wasn’t sure she was feeling anything other than the wandering hand beneath her clothes. Was there even anything else to feel? To hear?

“Lena?”

Lena didn’t open her eyes, even when her brain caught up with the distance Kara added between them. She had been barely able to feel Kara’s lips before, but she missed them once they were gone. She missed the warmth, the softness, even the taste. And she missed Kara’s hand once her former best friend removed it from the cold skin of her ribs.

“Lena? Your heartrate is spiking again.”

Kara sounded scared, although Lena had no idea why. She had witnessed a panic attack just a few minutes prior. Surely, she should know Lena wouldn’t die by now.

“Lena?”

She should do something about it. Take her mind away off it before it became a real, full-on panic attack that would consume her again.

“Onion ring chips.”

“Uh?”

Lena almost smiled at the confusion she could hear in Kara’s voice. She tilted her head down to hide the grin that insisted to appear, grabbed the blonde’s hoodie even harder and made sure that Kara knew she wasn’t supposed to pull away any further by tightening her hold at the nape of her neck. No point in pushing.

“You taste like onion ring chips.”

“Oh,” it was just a release of her breath, either in relief or more confusion, but Lena could picture Kara’s face perfectly even with her eyes closed – a crinkle between her brows, big blue eyes, pink lips pushed together. “Yeah, I, uh, I was eating before I came.” Blinking her eyes open, Lena sighed, nodded distractedly and tried to focus on everything she could see. Blue eyes, the crinkle, the tiny scar, pink lips, a black hoodie that was way softer than it looked, a faint blush. “Your heart is quite fascinating,” Kara mumbled under her breath when she raised one hand to fiddle with her glasses.

Lena immediately missed her touch. She wouldn’t, however, voice that. She could have, a year ago, but not anymore. Now, she bit the inside of her cheek and pretended she didn’t care when Kara let her hand drop instead of putting it on her waist again.

“Did you figure it out?” she whispered.

“What?”

“You said you needed to try something,” Lena reminded her with just a hint of bitterness. “Did you figure it out?”

Kara took a step back as though she had burned her. Half of her wanted to follow, to pursue, to touch and be touched. The other half, the one that still held some sanity, crossed her arms and hardened her expression. For the first time that night, the hero looked like she would rather be anywhere else.

“I-” Kara stopped, gulped, shook her head, looked down, placed both hands on her waist, looked up, down again, and then shrugged like she had just been defeated. Like she had just walked away from the hardest battle of her life without a victory. “Yes,” she ended up saying after Lena thought she would just fly away without looking back. “Yes, I did.”

At that, Lena cracked a smile. It was filled with bitterness and every bad feeling swirling inside her chest, and she wasn’t brave enough to look at Kara to see her reaction to the brokenness that was clear on her face. She was broken and she didn’t have the strength to hide it that night.

“Okay.”

Kara took another step back and the uncertainty, the hesitation she was feeling was clear as day in her blue eyes. Lena had forgotten. She had forgotten they were supposed to be enemies now, working on different sides and making accusations instead of sharing lunch while watching crap TV.

What an irony, Lena thought. What an irony that they had to kiss as enemies when they had been friends for much longer. When friends had meant much more.

The blonde took a step closer then, then took another two back, then closer again. She looked like she was trying to figure out something to say, what she should do, where to go from there. She had no idea where to start, but neither had Lena.

Kara was saved from saying anything when Lena yawned, bringing a hand to cover her mouth and letting her eyes fall close for a second. When she opened them again, the hero’s face had softened and she had a tiny smile that made Lena’s heart beat faster for a completely different reason.

“You should go to sleep.”

Lena almost said she wouldn’t be able to sleep – she never could so soon after a panic attack. However, she took one look at Kara’s almost gentle smile and decided to let her have that way out of the clearly uncomfortable conversation. Because it has been a year, and they were different people, and Lena didn’t even know who she was anymore, let alone anyone else around her.

“Okay. Yes, I will.”

So, Lena went on with her nightly routine while trying to ignore the elephant – or the superhero – in the room. She put the used mug inside the dishwasher, walked back to her room to grab her empty glass of water to fill it up and walked back to the kitchen. Kara hadn’t moved much, she had just leaned against the island counter and was staring at the marble with her brows furrowed and so intensely that, for a second, Lena thought she would burn the whole thing down by just staring at it. When Lena walked past her holding the full glass, she didn’t move and Lena didn’t say anything.

She wanted to.

Wanted to ask if she was going to stay there all night, staring at her counter and looking like she had no idea where she was. Wanted to ask if Kara still remembers where the extra blankets were. Wanted to ask her to leave at the same time she wanted to ask her to stay. And, in between her own confusion, Lena chose not to say a thing.

She put her glass down at the nightstand on top of the coaster, put her phone on the charger and walked to her bathroom so she could brush her teeth. While she added the toothpaste to her boring red toothbrush, Lena yawned again. All the emotions from her day were catching up on her. The deception with her project, with herself and humanity. Lex’s explosion. The panic attack. Kara randomly showing up. Kara’s lips touching hers. It felt like she had been awake for more than a day – more like a month – and all she wanted to do was crawl on her bed and rest. She knew sleep wouldn’t come easily, it never did these days, but she would try at the very least.

Lena fell on top of her bed like a dead weight. She didn’t bother changing clothes, closing the door or checking to see if Kara had left. The clothes made her feel comfortable, the bedroom could feel too small with the door closed and she didn’t want to know she was alone. So, she just took a deep breath, stared up at the ceiling and tried to think of ways she could force her body to sleep so she wouldn’t be able to think anymore.

Ironically, she fell asleep in less than a minute.

* * *

Lena woke up with the sound of heavy rain. There wasn’t thunder or lightning, but the rain was falling heavily outside from what she could hear. She took a deep breath, groaning a bit when she stretched, and then turned around to reach her phone. Her room was dark, mostly because of the curtains stopping any outside light to get in, and the glow from her phone burned her eyes for the first few seconds. She blinked the discomfort away before trying to focus on what she had to do that day.

She was halfway into remembering everything that had happened the day before when she noticed her blanket wasn’t its usual black color. Lena frowned, deciding she could concentrate on something else for a minute, and her arms fell to her sides so her fingers could investigate the material. It wasn’t as fluffy or soft as her usual blanket with its thousand something threadcount that had made it ridiculously expensive. Lena reached for her phone again so she could light the area around her and almost choked on nothing when she realized what had been used to protect her from the chill air of the night.

It was red and way heavier than it looked, and it certainly didn’t belong to her house. Supergirl’s cape. Every memory came crashing down on top of her leaving her breathless and lost. She remembered leaving that cape on her bathroom floor, wet and cold, and it made no sense to her that it was used as her personal mantle for the night. The only way for the cape to be covering her now instead of wetting her floor would be for Kara to have walked in after she fell asleep and put it on top of her.

That thought, that image, made Lena feel sorry again. She was sorry for many things. She had made a mistake, she was sorry, and she needed to say that before it was too late. Before Lex could move on with his plan, before he could cause even more damage than he already had, before something worse happened. And she needed to say she could never, ever, choose to hate Kara over loving her.

She needed to say that.

Lena almost jumped from her bed as she rushed to get changed and ready to go. It was early, way too early, and it was raining outside, but she would cross town to reach Kara’s apartment and she would apologize, she would tell her she was sorry and she would ask what the hell was the whole ordeal with the kiss from last night.

She hadn’t dreamed about that, had she? Kara kissed her. Kara really kissed her. Their lips had touched in a very non-friendly way. That hadn’t been a dream, had it?

No, Lena decided while putting on her trench coat without thinking too much about what she was doing. It hadn’t been a dream. She had said she loved Kara – loves, still, if she was going with the whole ‘being honest’ thing – and Kara had kissed her. Which could mean nothing, but also could mean everything, and Lena wasn’t about to ignore it for any longer. She would have to apologize, so she could add her own question into it.

She just needed to get to Kara’s place and...

Lena stopped in her tracks, almost slipping on the floor with how sudden she came to a stop, and only avoided screaming thanks to the way she was raised by Lillian. Kara was idly sitting on a stool by the island counter in the middle of her kitchen, drinking something from Lena’s old MIT mug while she read the morning journal. Like it was something common. Like she hadn’t just scared Lena to death. Like she belonged there.

Kara didn’t look up – not that she needed, Lena reasoned, she probably knew Lena was awake since before she had noticed it herself. All the blonde did was take another sip from the mug, turn the page and pursed her lips when she read something she didn’t like. The silence that fell above them was different from the night before. It was less heavy, Lena felt just as breathless, but it only lasted about ten seconds before Kara finally spoke.

“Are you going somewhere?”

She hadn’t look up yet and Lena felt only slightly disappointed. She missed the blue eyes, the small scar and the crinkle. She missed it more than she missed a simpler life without murdering brothers returning from the dead. Instead of replying right away, Lena glanced to her own outfit, to her purple trench coat, the jeans and boots, to the cape she had folded on top of her left forearm, and then, for some reason, she blushed. She felt ridiculous, for some reason.

“I...” Lena cleared her throat, bit her lips for a quick moment and then sighed when she looked back up. Kara was just lowering the mug again, and Lena watched her throat move up and down as she swallowed. Honesty, she tried to remember. “I was going to... try to find you.”

Somehow, saying she was going to try to find Kara sounded better than saying she was going to leave her apartment at 6 am on a Saturday when the sky was falling outside to cross town to beg for forgiveness. It wasn’t a lie, at least. And, apparently, it made Kara lose some of her determination to not look at her. Lena noticed how blue eyes moved to the side just for a second before focusing on the journal again and she found herself blushing again.

“Well... You found me.”

Yes, she did. Sitting in Lena’s kitchen, reading her journal and drinking her... whatever that was. Still there. Still around. Still... existing in Lena’s life as though they hadn’t avoided each other for almost a year. Well, Lena did most of the avoiding, she was going to admit that. She was also going to admit she had missed waking up and feeling hopeful.

And hope was all she could feel when her mouth started to move on its own accord, without her approval and faster than her brain could keep up. Hope that Kara would understand, that she would be able to find it in herself to forgive her when Lena had taken almost a year to be able to show her the same treatment.

“I have made a terrible mistake.” She watched through misty eyes because of the tears as Kara slowly let go of the mug so she could close her hand into a tight fist, and, even though her heart clenched and her mind started to race, Lena couldn’t stop talking. “I was hurt. I was _so_ hurt. And... I thought I could get rid of the hurt.”

Kara put the paper down next and she took a deep breath before finally turning her head to look at her. Lena almost stopped there, she almost gave up, turned around, walked back to her room and allowed darkness to consume her. She didn’t, though. Not when Kara was looking at her like... like she didn’t hate her. Not when Kara was still there. So, instead, Lena tried to remember how warm the sun Kara brought to her life felt, let her fingers fiddle with the cape she was holding tightly and let every word slip from her lips without trying to contain them anymore.

“I thought that I knew better, that I could make the world a better place. But I was wrong,” Lena swallowed a sob back and tried to hold back her tears, although it was already a lost battle. “That hurt took me to a dark, dark path, where I was blind to what I was really doing, to what I had become. You were right. This whole time I became a villain, and then...” A lot of things had almost happened. And then she lost everything. And then she was proved wrong. And then Lex showed his true colors again. And then, and then, and then. And then nothing. “I’m not looking for forgiveness. I’m... I know what I said and I know what I did, but I am...” Sorry, so terribly sorry. “I am really hoping that you will believe me right now. Okay?”

“Lena.” The single word, her name, wasn’t said softly or gently, but it wasn’t a curse either.

Even so, Lena didn’t look up from where she was staring at the red cape and she didn’t try to stop talking either. “Lex is working with Leviathan, and they are going to...”

“Lena.”

“...use Obsidian to do something terrible...”

“Lena.”

“...using the system I made with my project. I didn’t know I was helping them, but I did. And now...”

“Lena.”

“...Now I want to help stop them, so...”

“For Rao’s sake.”

“...please, okay? I want to help stop Lex and Leviathan.”

“Are you done?”

It was the impatience she could hear in Kara’s voice that made her look up. She had expected Kara to be mad at her, but she wasn’t expecting the blonde to sound so... done. When she looked up, though, all tears rolling down her cheeks and sobs being barely contained, she saw that Kara had a tiny smirk on her lips. The blonde had turned her body to better look at her and she had now an arm draped at the back of the stool beside her while she rested her chin on her other hand.

For a second, a terrifying second, Lena thought it was over. Then, Kara sighed, pulled the stool back and gave it a soft pat. “Sit down, will you?”

Lena didn’t know if she should ask what was going on, scream or cry even more. Instead of doing any of those things, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and tried to order her heart to stop beating so goddamn loud. When she opened her eyes again, Kara was filling a second mug with hot water and she could no longer hold a thousand myriad of emotions swirling inside.

She allowed herself to cry, then. Allowed a year of bottled-up emotions to escape and take over. Allowed the pain to be known. Allowed it all to be felt.

She was not expecting to feel Kara’s arms warmly embracing her into a tight hug. It didn’t stop her from resting her cheek on Kara’s shoulder or hugging her back just as hard. It also didn’t stop the tears, but that was okay. She knew she could trust Kara to have her back while she wasn’t strong enough to do it herself.

“We will figure it out,” Kara whispered on top of her head where she was resting her chin and Lena didn’t doubt for a second that she meant it.

“Do you hate me?” she asked lowly, not bothering to raise her voice.

“No,” Kara’s reply came fast and certain. “I don’t think that hating you would be easier than loving you either.”

And when Kara kissed the top of her head, Lena finally felt it. The fireworks she heard about in the romantic cliches Kara made her watch. She felt the fireworks and she felt the heat of the sun. She felt the tingles and the butterflies. She felt safe, maybe for the first time in her life.

“We will figure it out,” Kara whispered again and, this time, Lena knew she was talking more than Lex, and Leviathan and Obsidian, and every other mistake in between.

“We will figure it all out.”

**Author's Note:**

> For this End Notes, something different. If you follow my fics, you know I usually end them with a funny note that tries to sum up the entire plot, but I decided to change a little bit. Instead, I will recommend another story! You should all go check out 'you and me (and you makes three)' by searidings, the perfect mix of fun, cute and a bit angst.
> 
> Also, you can follow me on Tumblr for more fun, @writershapewholeonthedoor


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